Art at its best creates community. While I work on my pieces alone, I work to establish studios in which community thrives.
You decide who will appear in Artforum Magazine, take home $25,000, and display their work at The Art of Elysium's Salon!
Primarily wood fired ceramics. Over the years I have grown a lovely community of local potters and artists who will participate in my wood firings. In wood firing the wood ash that floats through the kiln glazes the pieces. Different kinds of work go in different zones of the kiln which yield different surfaces. We fire for about four days, someone constantly feeding the fire. It is tremendously labor intensive but unloading a wood kiln is thrilling.
Where do you find inspiration?I find inspiration in psychology, spirituality, nature and science. Also I enjoy the inspiration when everything comes together. Those moments when all the moving parts sync up to create something truly special. When all the materials, training, timing, environment, people, and opportunity click; there is an inexplicable magic that can happen. That’s what we work for, those moments and the pieces that are born from them fuel my passion to always make more.
What would you do with $25,000?I have spent the past year building a studio here in Blowing Rock NC. I have spent inheritance and earnings and now have a steel building that I am framing out and insulating. I will use the money to finish this studio so I can teach classes in a community that needs more art opportunities.
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